Schroeder not planning to visit Iran, govt says
BERLIN, Jan 13 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder does
not have concrete plans to visit to Iran following President Mohammed Khatami's
state visit to Germany last year, a spokeswoman said on Saturday.
The spokeswoman declined to comment on a report in the German news
magazine Der Spiegel saying Schroeder had cancelled for the time being
a proposed trip to Iran in the spring because of a controversial trial
in Iran against pro-reform activists.
"There are no concrete plans at the moment," the spokeswoman
said when asked about the report.
Following Khatami's visit to Germany in July last year, Schroeder said
he planned to reciprocate with a visit to Tehran.
Der Spiegel said Schroeder's return visit was being put off because
the chancellery did not see "a positive political environment"
in Iran.
An Iranian court on Saturday sentenced a top pro-reform journalist
and six other activists to up to 10 years in prison for their part in a
Berlin conference on change in Iran, the official IRNA news agency said.
It said maverick newspaper editor Akbar Ganji had been sentenced to
10 years.
The Berlin conference last year, organised by the Heinrich Boell Foundation,
which has close ties to Germany's Greens party, was called to discuss Iran's
reform process under Khatami.
The meeting was frequently interrupted by banned Iranian opposition
groups. Television pictures from Berlin included one man taking his clothes
off and a woman dancing, outraging many in Iran's conservative establishment.
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